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His commitment to this renovation project was about more than work. He wanted to do a good job with it—hands down, customer satisfaction was job one. But beyond that, he wanted to do his best to give Ava her dream. Listening to her talk about baking with her mom—the mom who had run off to Hollywood with the youngest daughter decades ago and had never been heard from since—was like a sign from above pointing the way to win her heart.
He wondered if Ava had any idea how purely her inner beauty shone when she talked about being happy like that? In wanting again, for others and for herself, a joy-filled place where wishes could come true?
She was a different kind of woman than he was used to. Whitney had been exactly what his mom had wanted for him. She was from a respectable family, from money older than the state of Montana. The right schools and the proper social obligations and charity work. But in the end, she’d been wrong for him. Wrong for the man he really was, not Roger Donovan’s son, but a Montanan born and raised, who liked his life a little more comfortable and far less showy.
The shop had a decimated look to it, even gilded by the golden peach of the newly rising sun. The interior walls were bare down to the studs, which glowed like honey in the morning light. The white dip and rise of electrical wire ran like a clothesline the length of the room. Dust coated the windows, but he could see the promise. See her dream.
Rex romped to the front door, springing in place with excitement. His tongue rolled out of his mouth as he panted, and since Brice was taking too long, pawed at the door handle.
“Hold on there, bud. I’m eager to see Ava, too.”
The retriever gave a low bark when he heard Ava’s name.
Yeah, at least the dog liking her wouldn’t be an issue the way it was with Whitney. Yet another sign, Brice figured as he picked through his mammoth ring of work keys, found the one for the shop and unlocked the door. Whitney hadn’t been fond of big, bouncing, sometimes slobbery dogs. Brice was.
The second the door was open an inch, Rex hit it at a dead run and launched through the open kitchen doors. There on the worktable was a bright pink bakery box. That explained the retriever’s eagerness. They may have missed Ava, but she’d left a consolation prize.
She’d come before his shift started, left her baking and skedaddled. Apparently, there was a good reason. Like maybe the comment he’d made about finally getting to talk with her over coffee. Maybe—just maybe—he shouldn’t have pointed that out.
Right when he’d thought he was making progress with her, getting to know her, letting her know the kind of man he was, he’d hit a brick wall.
Apparently Ava wasn’t as taken with him as he was with her.
Wow. That felt like a hard blow to his sternum. Here was the question: Did he pursue this or not? Sure, they’d gotten off on the wrong foot when she’d mistaken him for Chloe’s groom, but even after that, she’d been determined to put some distance between them.
Face it, this was one-sided. He’d stood right here in this kitchen and got to know her, seen right through to her dreams. He was captivated by her. He was falling in serious like with her.
But now? She was missing in action.
Rex’s bark echoed in the vacant kitchen.
“Okay, okay.” Brice popped open the huge bakery box. “Only one, and I mean it this time. All this baked stuff can’t be good for you—”
He fell silent at the treats inside the box. She’d promised muffins, but these weren’t like anything he’d ever seen. They were huge muffins shaped like cute, round monsters. They had ropy icing for hair, big goofy eyes, a potato nose and a wide grin. Two dozen monster faces stared up at him, colorful and whimsical.
Ava made the ordinary unusual and fun. He liked that about her. Very much.
He’d been praying, to find a good woman to love and marry. Have a few kids. Live a happy life. That had been part of his plan for a long time, but it just hadn’t worked out for one reason or another. In fact, it hadn’t worked out for such a length of time that began to feel as if his prayer was destined to remain unanswered.
The front door swung open and heavy boots pounded against the floor, echoing in the demolished room. It was Tim, the electrician. “Hey, where are those muffins she promised?”
“In here.”
“I gotta tell ya,” Tim said as he dropped his tool bags on the floor, “this might be the best job we’ve done yet. The doughnuts yesterday were something. You think she’s gonna keep bakin’ for us?” Tim’s jaw dropped in disbelief when he saw the muffins. “Look at that. Think anyone would mind if I took one home for my little girl? She’d get a kick out of that.”
Brice realized that Ava had made five times the number of muffins they needed for their small work crew. “Go for it.”
“Cool.” Tim grabbed a mammoth monster muffin and took a bite. “Mmm,” he said around a full mouth, as if surprised by how good it tasted.
Not that Brice was surprised by that. He flipped open his phone and dialed. While he waited for the call to connect, he took a muffin for Rex on the way out the back door. The sunshine felt hot and dry as he sat on the back step and unwrapped the muffin. The dog gobbled his muffin in three bites.
Ava picked up on the sixth ring. “Hi there. Is there a problem at the shop?”
Caller ID, he guessed. “A problem? You could say that.”
“What’s wrong? I was there and everything looked fine. Okay, it was like a total wreck, but it’s supposed to look like that, right?”
“Right. That wasn’t the kind of problem I meant.” He leaned back, resting his spine against the building. He wondered where she was. A lot of clanging sounded in the background. “You left a box of monsters behind. Why didn’t you stay and say hello?”
“I didn’t want to be in the way.”
“I hope you didn’t feel uncomfortable with me yesterday. You know I like you.”
“I’m trying to ignore that.”
“Is there any particular reason for that?”
“Well, you’re doing the renovation on my shop, for starters.”
“Good reason. Look, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Not around me. Not around my men. Not when it comes to the work we’re doing for you.”
“Sure, I know that.”
It didn’t seem as if she did. She sounded as vulnerable as she’d looked yesterday when she’d been talking about her baking. Okay, so maybe what he felt wasn’t a two-way street. “How about you and I agree to be friends. Would that make you more comfortable?”
“Friends? Uh, sure. Wait.” He could imagine her biting her bottom lip while she thought, the cute little furrow digging in between her eyes. “You mean like platonic friends.”
“I mean that whatever this is going on between us, let’s put in on hold until your renovation is done. That way you don’t have to come to your own shop before 6:45 a.m. just to avoid me.”
“I wasn’t necessarily avoiding you.” Ava knew her voice sounded thin and honest. She was no good at subterfuge of any kind. Another reason she’d never understood men who had hidden agendas. “You see, it’s not you. It’s me. All me.”
“You want to explain that?” he asked in that kind way he had, but he obviously didn’t understand.
There it was, doom, hovering right in front of her, and its name was Brice Donovan.
“It’s just that—” she blurted out, nearly losing hold of her grocery cart in the dairy aisle. “I have the worst luck dating. If there’s a loser anywhere near me, he’ll be the one I think is nice. I’m like a disaster magnet. That’s why I have a policy.”
“What policy? I don’t understand.”
She felt her heart weakening. She liked this man—and wasn’t that the exact problem? She had to be totally tough. Cool. Focused. Strong. That’s what she had to be. Strong enough to stick to her guns. “It’s an ironclad, nonnegotiable no-man, no-dating policy.”
“That’s a pretty strict policy. There’s a good reason for it, huh?”
Her throat tightened. When she spoke, she knew she sounded as if she were struggling. “Yeah. Nothing horrible, just disappointing. I don’t want to spend my life believing in a man’s goodness and being blind to any terrible faults that I just can’t see until it’s too late. You see, it’s like being color-blind. I’m just…” She didn’t know what to say.
Apparently Brice didn’t either. No sound came from his end of the connection. Nothing at all.
“I’m sorry.” That came out strangled sounding.
So she was never going to be a tough business woman. She wasn’t a tough anything. Sadness hit her like the cold from the refrigerated dairy case. Was she disappointed?
Surprisingly, yes.
“Okay, then. I’ll call you if we have any questions over here.” He broke the silence, sounding business as usual, but beneath, she thought she heard disappointment, too.
Maybe it was best not to think about that, she thought as she closed her phone, dumped it into her bag and put the milk jug into her cart. She couldn’t say why she would be feeling deflated, because she did the right thing by putting him off. She just had to stay focused on her goals and her path in life, she thought as she grabbed a carton of whipping cream.
Her phone rang again and she went fishing for it in her messy tote. Luckily it was still ringing when she found it. She didn’t recognize the number on the screen. “Hello?”
“Uh, yes,” came a refined woman’s voice. “My name is Maxime Frost and I was at Chloe Donovan’s wedding. Brice highly recommended you, and I just had to call. We simply must have one of your cakes for my Carly’s wedding.”
“I’m sure I can design something both you and Carly will love.”
She wrote down an appointment time on the inside of her checkbook and ended the call. How about that? Brice had recommended her in spite of the mistaken identity incident.
Just when she thought she was sure she’d made the right decision to stick to her no-date policy, look what happened. He made her start wishing all over again—and reconsidering.
Chapter Six
Everyone was at the restaurant by the time she got there, seated in a big table at the back, between a cozy intersection of booths. Of course, she was late because she was time-challenged. From the head of the table, Spence spotted her first and his dour frown darkened a notch. He highly prized timeliness. Katherine sat between him and her fiancé, Jack Munroe. Seated next to her dad, the teenaged Hayden gave a finger wave.
Ava lifted her hand to finger wave back but the sight of the appetizers in platters placed in three parts of the table stopped her in her tracks. “I can’t believe you ordered without me.”
“You’re twenty minutes late.” Spence huffed. “The assistant manager wasn’t going to hold the reservation just for you.”
Personally, this was why she thought Spence wasn’t married, but now was probably not the time to mention it. “Oops. Sorry.” She didn’t bother to explain the extra appointment she squeezed in, and that she’d left a message on Aubrey’s phone that she’d be late, and there had been a major traffic snarl from some wild moose who was wandering Glenrose Street. It was easier to endure Spence’s scowl.
She dropped into the empty seat next to her twin. “Do you check your messages?”
“I was out at the studio and lost track of time. I barely got here myself.” Aubrey grabbed the platter in front of her and began sliding a stack of deep-fried zucchini slices onto Ava’s plate. “Don’t worry about Spence. It’s that assistant manager who works here. The one that had that date with Katherine long ago and it didn’t go well? He’s always snippy with us. The construction—”
“Is going well.” Ava paused to bow her head and gave a quick grace, since she’d missed Spence’s blessing.
Aubrey spooned a heap of creamy dip next to the zucchini slices on Ava’s plate. “And how’s Brice?”
“Fine, I guess. I didn’t see him today.”
“And that wouldn’t be because you’re avoiding him?”
“I’m not avoiding him.” It wasn’t true but she wanted it to be. “Fine, I just avoided him for the day. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.”
“He’s supposed to be this great guy. Wasn’t he this year’s most eligible bachelor or something?”
“Let’s not talk about him.” She glanced around the table to see if everyone was straining to listen. They were. “Later, okay?”
Katherine spoke up. “Didn’t you do a wedding cake for Brice’s sister?”
“Yeah. Just.” Like she wanted to talk about it? This was the downside of being in a big family. Nothing was secret for long. “He’s the contractor doing the renovation.”
Spence leaned in. “You mean it’s his company doing the renovation. He’s not doing the actual work. He’s an owner.”
“No, he’s like the on-site manager guy. Trust me, he had a hammer and everything.” She hedged because everyone in her family but Aubrey was way too eager to marry her off. “Chloe recommended the company.”
It didn’t look like anyone at the table was fooled by that.
Katherine passed her hunky fiancé a platter of mozzarella sticks. “I thought Brice Donovan was engaged.”
“No,” Aubrey dragged a zucchini slice through a puddle of dip. “I read in the paper over a year ago that she called it off. The wedding was cancelled something like two days before it was supposed to happen. That had to be very hard for both of them.”
Ava couldn’t seem to swallow. The part of her that was afraid of getting close to him wanted to use this new piece of news as a reason to keep away from him. He’d already had one failed relationship. He was probably at fault, and she didn’t need some flawed guy, right? On the surface, it sounded like the best reasoning.
But she knew it wasn’t. Brice was a good guy—that much was clear. The real question was, how far down did that kindness go? Was it superficial, or the real thing?
The cracked pieces of her heart ached with a wish she couldn’t let herself voice. Brice had a lot of redeeming qualities, so what? She had to resist. What she had to do was clear every thought of him from her mind. His every image from her memory. No more thoughts of Brice Donovan allowed.
“Good evening, McKaslin family,” said a familiar voice behind her. Brice’s voice.
Of course.
Why did it have to be him? She felt as if she’d been hit with the debris from a fast approaching tornado. She couldn’t outrun it, escape it and there was no hope of avoiding it as Brice Donovan stepped into sight.
To her surprise her brother stood, nodding a greeting. “Good to see you again, Brice. Would you care to join us, or are you here with your family?”
“With family. It’s my mother’s birthday, but thanks for the invite. I just spotted Ava and I thought I’d come over. Let her know a few things about the job today, if she’s got time before her meal arrives.”
Ava could feel the power of his presence, stronger than the earth’s gravity holding her feet to the floor. “Do I have time?” she asked her twin.
“I ordered for you,” Aubrey explained. “Take your phone and you two go talk. I’ll call you when the meal arrives.”
Okay, it sounded like a good plan, but there was a downside here—did she want to be alone with Brice? No. Was she mentally prepared to be alone with him? Not a chance.
She grabbed her plate and her phone and followed him to the more casual patio area, where there were plenty of tables available. Brice nodded toward one of the waiters, who gestured to a set of unoccupied tables along the railing.
“I was hoping to catch you tomorrow morning.” Brice was entirely too close as he leaned to pull out a chair for her. “But seeing you charge through the restaurant a few minutes ago seemed like a sign. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”
“Nope.” What she minded was being alone with him. How was she going to hold on to her policy now? She caught a hint of his spicy aftershave. “After all, we’ve agreed to be friends.”
“Exactly.” He smiled his killer smile, the one with the dimples.
Did he know what that did to a woman? It made every innocent, friendly thought vanish and the ones about sweet romance and marriage proposals surge forth like a hurricane hitting shore. That part of her, which always panicked when she got too close to anyone new, started to tremble.
There was no need to panic. This was only business, right? Except as he helped her scootch her chair up to the table, it definitely didn’t feel friendly.
He took the chair across the table from her, and a girl might think that would be safer, with the span of the table between them, but somehow he seemed closer. Much too close.
Don’t wish, she reminded herself and bit into a zucchini slice. “If it’s bad news about the renovation, you can’t just spring it on me. It’s best to work up to it. Want some?”
“Sure.” He grabbed a coated, deep-fried slice and crunched into it. “I have some suggestions for changes for the finished woodwork. What Rafe drew up for you is nice, but it’s plain.”
